Time Warner Cable Caps Prompt Fairness Bill

Time Warner Cable has temporarily shelved plans for usage-based caps, but Rep. Eric Massa is still concerned.

0shares

Time Warner Cable has temporarily shelved plans for usage-based caps, but Rep. Eric Massa is still concerned.

Massa, a New York Democrat, introduced a bill on Tuesday that would require Internet service providers that plan to introduce usage-based caps to submit their plans to the Federal Trade Commission prior to implementation. If the agency found that these plans were unreasonable or discriminatory, they would be banned.

The Broadband Internet Fairness Act would also require the FTC to hold public hearings on proposed plans, and impose fines on ISPs that did not comply.

The bill would only affect ISPs with more than 2 million customers, and applies to all ISPs, whether they are cable, phone, or satellite.

"This fight is not going to go away without protections," Massa said during a Wednesday conference call with reporters. "And I am not going to stand by while we do the same thing with respect to this industry that happened with the banking industry, and that's just leading a whole bunch of sheep down the shoot."

The FTC would make its decisions in consultation with the Federal Communications Commission, but Massa decided to ultimately put it in the hands of the FTC because "they have a long-standing history of regulating issues of this nature," he said.

Massa dismissed the notion that his bill is over-regulation.

"We're here to enable competitiveness," he said. "That's one of our major issues. Because I frankly believe that if you open up the marketplace to competitiveness, it'll go a long toward solving this problem."

Washington-based interest group Free Press issued its support.

"With monthly Internet bills on the rise, overcharges just add insult to injury," said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press. "This is an inspiring example of grassroots activism fighting against a big corporation and a member of Congress siding with the people. We don't see it often enough. This bill sends a message that Congress is watching and can take action to protect consumers."

Massa, whose district is in upstate New York, first got involved in this issue when a group of Rochester-based doctors called him to complain that usage-based caps would triple the price of their Internet service, Massa said.

Time Warner started testing bandwidth caps last year in its Beaumont, Texas market  a test that it expanded to North Carolina and New York earlier this year. The plans prompted scrutiny from customers, public interest groups, and Congress, so Time Warner announced in Aprilthat it would put consumption-based cap testing on hold pending a "consumer education" campaign.

Time Warner had no comment on the Massa bill.

AT&T slammed the bill and Free Press' support.

//Related Articles

The bill "advocates for a radical and unprecedented government mandate that will demand that consumers have only one all-you-can-eat pricing model for Internet services," AT&T said in a statement. "Free Press prefers that grandma  who simply wants to download their grandchildren's online photos a few times a month  to pay for the heavy-using teenager who is downloading HD movies."

Massa said he consulted industry experts like Microsoft and Google when crafting his bill. A spokeswoman from Microsoft's D.C. office had no record of a meeting with Massa's office. Google did not respond by press time.

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 3pm Eastern time with comment from AT&T and Microsoft.

Chloe Albanesius has been with PCMag.com since April 2007, most recently as Executive Editor for News and Features. Prior to that, she worked for a year covering financial IT on Wall Street for Incisive Media. From 2002 to 2005, Chloe covered technology policy for The National Journal's Technology Daily in Washington, DC. She has held internships at NBC's Meet the Press, washingtonpost.com, the Tate Gallery press office in London, Roll Call, and Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from American University...
More »

Automatic Renewal Program: Your subscription will continue without interruption for as long as you wish, unless
you instruct us otherwise. Your subscription will automatically renew at the end of the term unless you authorize
cancellation. Each year, you'll receive a notice and you authorize that your credit/debit card will be charged the
annual subscription rate(s). You may cancel at any time during your subscription and receive a full refund on all
unsent issues. If your credit/debit card or other billing method can not be charged, we will bill you directly instead. Contact Customer Service